The Bittersweet Homecoming
by Nitrobot
Summary: With the revival of Cybertron, Autobots and Decepticons from all over the universe flock back home- including Chromia and Ironhide, desperate to see their son Cliffjumper again. Bumblebee is left to give them the bad news. [implied Cliffcee]


"I gotta say, Bee, I was startin' to think I'd never get to feel Cybertron under ma' peds again." Ironhide stamped them down on the hard metal stretching for miles over the planet's thrumming catacombs, just to make sure he was standing firm on his home.

"Well, we've got Optimus to thank for that," Bumblebee said with an attempt at a smile, though his shrug was squashed by a sudden hard thud on his back from Chromia.

"And the rest of you," she said, moving in front of Bee to stand beside her sparkmate, with hardly a bruise on her hand from the dent she left for the yellow mech to rub at. "Don't sell yourself short, Bee, it's hard enough to live up to a Prime."

"Shame he couldn't be here to see all the fireworks…" Ironhide craned his neck up as another shower of newsparks shot out overhead, arcing through the sky trailing ribbons of light from Primus' chamber, all that was left of Optimus flying eagerly to all corners of the planet. At least, that's how Bumblebee liked to think of it.

"So, where's Cliffjumper?"

Bumblebee almost succeeded in smiling before he heard the question, and the name he thought was gone forever. If he'd remembered they had a son together, he might have been more prepared to tell them he was dead. Their faces were so bright, etched with the hope of proud parents in those few moments before they noticed how taut his features were now, how he struggled to break the telling silence now stretching out between the three of them.

"...No one told you?" Bee eventually manged to ask, while Chromia and Ironhide's grins were already falling flat.

"...Told us what?" Chromia said, quiet so she didn't have to hear how her words were on the verge of cracking.

For the first time, Bee wished his vocaliser was still broken so he didn't have to tell them, didn't have to hear for himself the undeniable fact that Cliff wasn't with them anymore. But Optimus chose him, and the agony of other bots was something he'd have to get used to.

"He's… he's in the Allspark now."

It was like hearing the news for himself all over again, though somehow it was worse between only two bots rather than a whole team of them. Maybe because the emotion was that more potent, so raw and heavy on their faces that the plates seemed to warp permanently, in the fleeting glance Bee managed to throw at them before it proved too much for him to handle.

Ironhide had tight, corded hands on Chromia's trembling shoulders, and it seemed his grip on her was the only thing stopping him from collapsing. "That… that explains why he never commed us…" It was all the mech could mumble before his vocaliser crowded with static and his optics stung with an overflow of coolant. Chromia's reaction came a moment later, in the form of a hard dent left in the nearest hard surface as her hand slammed brutally into it. The ringing metal of the broken ground and her digits was louder than the sobs she choked back in Predacon snarls.

"WHO DID IT? _WHO KILLED MY BABY_!?" She wrenched Bee's shoulders, forcing him to see her coolant-streaked faceplate and the fanged-denta tearing at the air as she demanded answers. Even Ironhide was shocked at his mate's fury, trying to pull her back.

"Mia, don't take it out on Bee-!"

But Bumblebee was waving him away. "It's okay, Ironhide. It's… it's okay." Chromia was already sagging against him, helm bowed in defeat as sobs hauled on her frame and made her chest and backstrut jerk with the force of her sadness. She'd left grooves and gouges in his plates where her fists hammered wildly, but Bee ignored them as he softly placed his hands over her limp, aching digits.

"Starscream," he told her. "He's the one who took Cliff from us." And now he was most likely just as dead, rotting in Predacon claws or crawling in a ditch somewhere in Cybertron's dungeons, too deep to fly out of. That should have made Bumblebee feel better, but there was no such thing as justice during war. And he knew it wouldn't make them feel better either.

Chromia forced her sobs into more dignified hisses, eventually gulping it all down as she shoved away from Bee. "...I need to be alone." Ironhide didn't stop her, didn't even look up as she marched off in a whirlwind of anger and a sadness Bee couldn't even begin to understand, that of a mother losing her only child. She didn't go far, marching to a plateau in the distance before letting her shadow fall and grieve in peace. Bee could still hear her cries no matter how she tried to muffle them, and Ironhide had to shield his audios to stop himself joining her. The one thing he couldn't hide from was his own pain, making him look and sound centuries older. Even having to talk seemed to hurt him.

"How… how did he die, Bee?" It was something he didn't want to know, but felt like he had to. And likewise Bee was wrestling with how much to tell him, whether they'd want to know how he was brought back under Unicron's control or if they'd appreciate a lie more.

He decided on the latter, for both their sakes. "We never found his body. But… it was quick. He didn't suffer."

Ironhide flashed a smile that was somehow harder to look at than a frown, even if it only lasted a nanoklick. "I guess that's all I can be grateful for…" With how his faceplate strained, the coolant tear rolling down it ended up dripping off his chin, and Bee could actually hear the tin thrum of it hitting the ground.

"We set up a little shrine for him on Earth… on his favourite spot. You can see the sunset from it." He knew Ironhide didn't care about Earth, maybe didn't think sunsets were worth watching or shrines worth the effort of building, but Bee still felt like he had to say something, anything as proof that Cliffjumper was more than just one spark lost among millions in the war. At least no more tears followed as Ironhide nodded once, crossing heavy servos over his shaking chest as he tried to reboot his vocaliser before it closed over from rust.

"I gotta… I should go see Chromia," he said, halfway to turning away just as Bee blurted out one last thing.

"I'm sorry, Ironhide." The apology, one he felt needed to be said, tethered the old and tired mech where he stood as he turned back around. Everything about his face was steel, except his mouth and its mercury-soft smile.

"You ain't got anything to be sorry for, Bee. I… I know you all would've taken good care of Cliff… at least no-one else has to join him now. He made us proud… like how you made Optimus." Then he was gone, kicking up small dust plumes as he joined his mate in their bubble of private mourning, leaving Bee to think over that comparison and jump slightly when he realised Arcee was next to him.

"I'm guessing they just learned about Cliffjumper?" She was following his gaze towards the two bots perched on the horizon, standing on the edge of the new world and trying to accept the only thing they'd contributed to it was now dead. Bee knew she emphasised, but he didn't know she'd been aware of Cliff's relation to them.

"You knew they were his parents?"

Arcee shrugged. "He didn't really like talking about them, but… he mentioned them sometimes. It always made him emotional."

"Yeah, Cliff… he avoided anything he couldn't punch away. Just like his parents did." Bee didn't know Cliffjumper well before he landed on Earth with Arcee, but any Autobot knew the stories of his parents, the battlefield couple who danced on Decepticon graves and, supposedly, bonded in the middle of a fight with Megatron's forces. Hard stories to live up to, even where Cliff was concerned. It was only luck that had Bee knowing he was their son, and only the bad kind that left him to the task of telling them he was gone.

"All this time, they never knew…" It was a thought Arcee whispered aloud, weighed with all kinds of woe, but one kind in particular that was still plaguing her from her own mourning.

"...I don't think they knew about you, either," Bee said, sharing a long look with her that ended with a nod, and the gentle scuff of anxious peds as Arcee approached the couple in their silhouetted, sun-glanced sorrow.

"Ironhide, Chromia… I was really close to your son on Earth."

Whatever she said after that was between the three of them, as that's when Bumblebee turned his audios low and walked away, knowing he could do nothing more to help and, much more intimately, knowing they weren't the only parents who'd be coming home to sparkbreak.


End file.
